Neighborhood Image is celebrating 5 years!

A little over five years ago we were in a bit of a predicament and there were two options: strike out on our own, or Sean needed to find a new job elsewhere. It was a big choice to make, and it resulted in a lot of stressing on our part, a lot of negotiation on Sean’s part with our former employer, and a lot of faith that we could do this. The situation was less than ideal – no one wants to be informed that they’d be out of a job – but it was the hand we were dealt. It was both exciting and terrifying, though terrifying might be a bit of an understatement.

A lot has happened over five years, and in the beginning I wasn’t sure we’d make it. We knew we could handle our usual work with the design, news site, etc, but running a business, dealing with taxes, etc is a whole different ball game. There were a lot of tears on my part the first year when we had to pay out way more taxes than we anticipated. The learning curve was really steep. It’s no wonder most small businesses fail within the first few years – it’s hard. In fact, the Small Business Administration has a PDF with some stats that show that “half of all new establishments survive five years or more and about one-third survive 10 years or more.” We had a 50/50 chance with this, and I’m so thrilled to report that we’ve hit that five year mark. We’ve made it to the better half of that statistic!

I’m so thankful for every single client who has chosen to work with us, both past and present, over these last five years. Without you, we wouldn’t still be here doing the things we love, getting to work with other amazing people in the community.